A blog hosted by the Right Honorable The Earl of Stirling, hereditary Governor & Lord Lieutenant of Canada, Lord High Admiral of Nova Scotia. Covers diverse topics including European and North American politics and economics, strategy, war, religion, high technology, End Times, medicine, Scotland, Scottish clans, Scots Peerage Law, and more.

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2Feb2011 8:15pm Cairo time:

President Mubarak has sent in his thugs. Several hundred plain clothes police and security personal are acting as "pro-Mubarak" demonstrators in the main square and are armed and throwing Molotov Cocktails on the masses of people there. Mubarak does not intend to go; he is supported in this by Israel and forces that Bibi Netanyahu controls. However, the longer he stays in office and the more bloody it becomes, the more it guarantees that the Muslin Brotherhood and other more extreme forces will end up with the government of Egypt. This will serve the interests of the global banking elite, who desire a new global war/WWIII beginning in the Middle East. We are witnessing the early stages of the final period of the End Times begin to play itself out. Stirling

Mubarak vows to Quit after polls - with video ~ link ~ Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak has said he will not stand for re-election in September, as protests against his rule grow. Speaking on state TV, Mr Mubarak promised constitutional reform, but said he wanted to stay until the end of his current presidential term. The announcement came as hundreds of thousands rallied in central Cairo urging him to step down immediately.

US President Barack Obama said that Egypt's transition "must begin now". He said the US would be happy to offer assistance to Egypt during that process.

Egypt Riots: US Playing Both Sides? ~ link ~You know I read a lot putting this news blog together (always have anyway), and I have read all or most of the theories of who/what/why/etc. of the Tunisia Revolution, the Egyptian Revolution, and 'troubles' in other Arab nations including Jordan. Now I have some idea of what is really going on, but I don't really have all the pieces together. But something says that these events are going to end up driving events in the Middle East....already on the brink of war for some time....over the edge. That these unfolding events in the Middle East are part of something much larger. Something I sometimes call the 'Perfect Cornucopia From Hell'. That is the strange combination of major events from 'different' backgrounds coming together now. I am referring to the Global Depression with the high likelihood of a collapse of the US Dollar and the resulting chaos from that domestically in America and also globally; the BP Oil Disaster caused global climate crisis; the related coming food shortage that by itself may cause hundreds of millions to die of starvation, with resulting riots/revolutions; a 1848 and 1968 level of revolutions in many places on the globe; a General Middle Eastern War that quickly becomes World War III and Armageddon. Stirling

Egypt's Rising Food Prices: The Economic Crisis Is Driving Political Protests Sparked In Part By US Financial Speculation ~ link ~ Food, both as another plunder opportunity of the highest magnitude, and as a form of warfare/murder. Stirling

This is an upstairs/downstairs story that takes us from the peak of a Western mountaintop for the wealthy to spreading mass despair in the valleys of the Third World poor. It is about how the solutions for the world financial crisis that the Ceos and Big pols are massaging in a posh conference center in snowy Davos Switzerland have turned into a global economic catastrophe in the streets of Cairo, the current ground zero of a certain to spread wave of international unrest.

Yes, the tens of thousands in the streets demanding the ouster of the cruel Mubarek regime are there now pressing for their right to make a political choice but they are being driven by an economic disaster that has sent unemployment skyrocketing and food prices climbing. People are out in the streets not just to meet but by their need to eat.

As Nouriel Roubini who was among the first to predict the financial crisis while others were pooh-poohing him as “Dr Doom” says don’t just look at the crowds in Cairo but what is motivating them now, after years of silence and repression.

He says that the dramatic rise in energy and food prices has become a major global threat and a leading factor that has gone largely unreported in the coverage of events in Egypt.

"What has happened in Tunisia, is happening right now in Egypt, but also riots in Morocco, Algeria and Pakistan, are related not only to high unemployment rates and to income and wealth inequality, but also to this very sharp rise in food and commodity prices," Roubini said.

Prices in Egypt are up 17% because of a worldwide surge in commodity prices that has many factors but speculation on Wall Street and big banks is a key one. As IPS reported, “Wall Street investment firms and banks, along with their kin in London and Europe, were responsible for the technology dot-com bubble, the stock market bubble, and the recent U.S. and UK housing bubbles. They extracted enormous profits and their bonuses before the inevitable collapse of each.

Now they've turned to basic commodities. The result? At a time when there has been no significant change in the global food supply or in food demand, the average cost of buying food shot up 32 percent from June to December 2010, according to the U.N. Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO). Nothing but price speculation can explain wheat prices jumping 70 percent from June to December last year when global wheat stocks were stable, experts say.”

40% of Egyptians Live on $2/Day Or Less and the Global Elite LIKE IT THAT WAY ~ link ~ You can just "feel" the thickness of evil at work here. Stirling

Raising Lazarus from the dead would be easier than reviving the Egyptian President. So Obama is on to plan B. And as it turns out, plan B looks a lot like the status-quo, minus a change of face. The new face is a man handpicked by the U.S., Mohamed ElBaradei, a UN bureaucrat who hasn't lived in Egypt in decades and is virtually unknown by the Egyptian people. Placing ElBaradei in power will take behind the scenes political maneuvering combined with military repression, a plan that will collide with the revolutionary demands of the people.

World Revolution Made in America. The Biggest Battlefield yet to come will be in the USA ~ link ~ Actually, I have always felt that America is the primary target for the End Game Strategy for the implementation of the New World Order. Stirling

In many and very real ways, as Andrew Gavin Marshall (1) and others have pointed out, what is happening in the Middle East and North Africa is the beginning of a global awakening.

Right now, the streets of Cairo, Tunis and elsewhere look like battlefields. But the biggest battlefield yet to come will be in the US. And quite fittingly so. As the executive power upholding the capitalist order that has for decades spawned wars, violence, injustice, corruption and fascism around the world to achieve its undemocratic ends, the US is the primary site of struggle for democracy, not just in the US, but also for the rest of the world.

In past decades, the battle lines were obscured by lack of communications and propaganda diversions (the ‘evil Soviet empire, Vietnam, Latin American subversion, war on drugs, and, latterly, this phony war on terror, etc). But with mounting and unrelenting poverty across the US (and Europe), and global communications, the battle lines are now becoming apparent. The real enemy is the US/Western diktat of capitalism – the economic system that enriches the few and impoverishes the majority because it is all about private profit, and increasingly elite private profit.

The people of the US and Europe are not mere observers to some kind of removed spectacle. They are intimately involved in this struggle. It is their governments that have already taken sides in this struggle. It is their governments that have sparked the revolution by creating these regimes in the first place.

It is their governments that form and inform the policies of these regimes. Because they are the very same policies of anti-democracy that are also being forced – and all too painfully being forced – on the people of the US and Europe: autocratic political monopoly under two- or three-party systems of servility, economic injustice, elite embezzlement, financial oligarchy, erosion of human rights, police state powers. It’s a sliding scale of fascism that has as its epicentre Western capitals, and in particular Washington. The struggle for democracy is not just being fought for in the streets of the Middle East and North Africa. The struggle is on every US and European street too – albeit latent and partially obscured for now. In this struggle, we are no longer Americans, European, Africans or Asians – the elites long ago gave up their pretense of patriotism in their quest for profits. We are people of the world who demand democracy – real, sustainable democracy that can not be delivered by Global capitalism.

The world is witnessing a world revolution. Its origins, of course, go back a long time to the tyrannies of Europe. But its latest phase began in the US. There, it will have to be finished. It is a vital task. Onerous yet potentially glorious for the sake of democracy, justice and peace in the world.

Celente: Revolutionary Fervor to Spread Beyond Arab States - EUROPE NEXT ~ link ~Now Egypt is in the throes of insurrection, and Algeria, Jordan, Morocco and Yemen are already targeted for revolutionary change. The richer and more tightly controlled Kingdoms of the Middle East will not be immune to challenges from their citizenry to break the chains of royal rule.

But, as I had forecast in the Trends Journal, it is not solely the Middle East that is destined to experience episodes of violent upheaval. What is transpiring in the Arab world will spread throughout many European states. While the call to arms will be spoken in different tongues, the underlying causes will be the same.

In December 2010 (before Tunisia made the headlines) we issued a Trend Alert® titled, "Off With Their Heads!" in which we predicted a "long war between the people and the ruling classes." We noted that, "Anyone questioning the intensity of the people's seething anger is either out of touch or in denial."

The Tunisian example and Britain ~ link ~ In Britain these events are viewed with mild detached interest, as if riots are to be expected in unenlightened parts of the world. The seeds to Britain’s own street riots have been securely planted by its government, however. They will grow in the field of “the market”, tended by a financial elite. Their fruit is poverty.

Last November, across Britain, students protested in the streets against increased university tuition fees that from now on will leave most students in debt by between GBP 30,000-40,000 by the time they graduate. More demonstrations were held on 29 January for the same reason. These demonstrations will not continue to be non-violent. The number of young adults aged under 25 who are out of work is now just under one million. These are the first signs of serious problems ahead and they have emerged very quickly, triggered by a credit bubble and banking crash.

The students’ debts are publicly justified by the government’s view that since graduates will earn more than non-graduates, they should pay extra for their education. This is merely a fig leaf. These debts are transferred losses from the British banks that were bailed out by taxpayers in an enormous cash transfer of wealth from the future and present working population to the financial elite of the country. Britain’s wealth is being concentrated in its business elite and the banks are the key institutions in doing this. The banks hold the country’s capital, use it to finance the expansion of big business, manipulate credit to transfer cash from the population to themselves and protect the wealth of the business elite.

It is easier and more profitable for the banks to use British deposits and government funds in international big business transactions than to support small British businesses.

Our future graduates will be fortunate to find jobs of any sort, much less the skilled positions that they expect. Unemployment is growing and will increase long-term. Current under-25s will be poorer than their parents due to the long-term decline of the British economy. This is not merely a statistical phenomenon that can be spun in the jargon of “double-dip” recessions and “manufacturing recoveries”. It is the inevitable result of greedy business and political elitism operating in a rapidly-changing world market.

Ten Things That The Egypt Riots Teach Us About What Happens When Society Breaks Down ~ link ~ Among them are: guns, food, water, everyday supplies should already be in your possession for a self-imposed quarantine that could last months or even a year long. Stirling

Former US Ambassador to UN John Bolton: If Mubarak falls in Egypt, Israel should bomb Iran~ link ~ I have a really bad feeling about the aftereffects of the current Arab revolutions. It will be used by the most evil of all to promote a totally satanic plan for World War III. Stirling

Former US Ambassador to the United Nations John Bolton said the ouster of embattled Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak would speed the timetable for an attack on Iran's nuclear facilities. "Do you think that the Israelis are going to have to strike — they are going to have to take action?" Fox News Republican opinion host Sean Hannity asked the former ambassador on his radio program Monday. "As you pointed out, ElBaradei ran cover for the Iranians for all those years that he was with the IAEA. And, I just don’t think the Israelis have much longer to wait… they're going to have to act in fairly short order." "I think that's right," Bolton responded. "I don't think there’s much time to act. And I think the fall of a Egyptian government committed to the peace agreement will almost certainly speed that timetable up."

The Egyptian masses won't play ally to Israel says Haaretz (largest newspaper in Israel) ~ link ~ A second, no less important conclusion: Alliances with unpopular regimes can be torn up overnight. As long as the masses in Egypt and in the entire Arab world continue seeing the images of tyranny and violence from the occupied territories, Israel will not be able to be accepted, even it is acceptable to a few regimes.

The Egyptian regime became an ally of the Israeli occupation. The joint siege of Gaza is irrefutable proof of that. The Egyptian people didn't like it. They never liked the peace agreement with Israel, in which Israel committed itself to "respect the legitimate rights of the Palestinian people" but never kept its word. Instead, the people of Egypt got the scenes of Operation Cast Lead.

A recent editorial on the website of Voice of America reflected on last year being one in which the United States solidified relations with the five former Soviet republics in Central Asia: Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan.

One or more of the five nations border Afghanistan, Russia, China and Iran and several more than one of the latter. Kazakhstan, for example, adjoins China and Russia.

The U.S. and Britain, with the support of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, invaded Afghanistan and fanned out into Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan in October of 2001, less than four months after Russia, China, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan founded the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) to foster expanding economic, security, transportation and energy cooperation and integration in and through Central Asia. In 2005 India, Iran and Pakistan joined the SCO as observers and Afghan President Hamid Karzai has attended its last five annual heads of state summits. [1]

Now the U.S. and the NATO have over 150,000 troops planted directly south of three Central Asian nations.

Kazakhstan and Turkmenistan are also on the Caspian Sea, a reservoir of oil and natural gas whose dimensions have only been accurately determined in the past twenty years and where American companies are active in hydrocarbon projects.

After the U.S. invasion of Afghanistan, the Pentagon and its NATO allies deployed military forces to, in addition to Soviet-constructed air bases in Afghanistan, bases in Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan. The first two countries border China.

As of last March the U.S. military confirmed that a monthly average of 50,000 American and NATO troops passed through Kyrgyzstan's Transit Center at Manas as part of the war in Afghanistan. Also last year, U.S. officials mentioned building new military training centers in Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan.

Things Have To Change In Order To Remain The Same by Paul Craig Roberts ~ link ~ Israeli prime minister Netanyahu told the US and Europe that criticism of Mubarak must be curbed in order “to preserve stability in the region.”

By “stability” Netanyahu means the unimpeded ability of Israel to continue oppressing the Palestinians and stealing their country. Mubarak has been for three decades the well-paid enforcer for the US and Israel, sealing off Gaza from the outside world and preventing aid flows across the Egyptian border. Mubarak and his family have become multi-billionaires, thanks to the American taxpayer, and the US government, both Republicans and Democrats, do not want to lose their heavy investment in Mubarak.

The US government has long corrupted Arab governments by paying rulers installed by the US to represent US/Israeli interests rather than the interest of Arab peoples. Arabs put up with American-financed oppression for many years, but now are showing signs of rebellion.

The murderous American-installed dictator in Tunis was overthrown by people taking to the streets. Rebellion has spread to Egypt and there are also street protests against the US-supported rulers in Yemen and Jordan.

These uprisings might succeed in ousting puppet rulers, but will the result be anything more than the exchange of a new American puppet ruler for the old? Mubarak might go, but whoever takes his place is likely to find himself wearing the same American harness.

What dictators do is to eliminate alternative leadership. Potential leaders are either assassinated, exiled, or imprisoned. Moreover, anything short of a full-fledge revolution, such as the Iranian one, leaves in place a bureaucracy accustomed to business as usual. In addition, Egypt and the country’s military have grown accustomed to American support and will want the money to keep flowing. It is the flow of this money that ensures the purchase of the replacement government.

Is War with Iran Inevitable ~ link ~ It will happen and soon. Stirling

Israeli troops "swarm" Lebanon border ~ link ~ A bit 'over the top' reporting by the Iranian PressTV. Every side has its own spin, its own lies. Truth is the first causality of war. Stirling

US prepares for growing winter storm ~ link ~ I can hear it just outside my home office as I type this. Stirling

Snow is forecast to cause travel problems across more than a dozen states

The US is bracing for another onslaught of bitter winter weather as a major storm gathers in the mid-west. The storm is expected to affect a third of the country, stretching from Colorado in the country's centre to the north-eastern state of Maine. Some 6,000 flights were cancelled on Tuesday, with more cancellations foreseen on Wednesday.

Nearly 27,000 homes in Texas and 14,000 in Ohio were without power, and storm alerts were issued in 19 states.

Officials in the city of Chicago, which is expecting 24in (60cm) of snow, said its public schools would close on Wednesday for their first "snow day" in 12 years.

Australian officials have urged residents in parts of Queensland to evacuate with their loved ones before Cyclone Yasi strikes, late on Wednesday night local time (after 1200 GMT). State Premier Anna Bligh said people should just "grab each other" and find safety before the storm hits the coast.

Officials say the category five storm is expected to be the largest to ever hit the continent. Last month, Queensland was hit by widespread deadly flooding. Yasi is currently 555km (344 miles) east of Cairns and 560km northeast of Townsville. It has winds of up to 295 km/h (183 mph) at its centre. Ms Bligh warned that Queenslanders faced a "frightening time".

Cyclone Yasi is expected to hit the Australian coast early on Thursday

The Bureau of Meteorology (BoM) has warned that Cyclone Yasi posed an "extremely serious threat to life and property within the warning area, especially between Cairns and Townsville. "This impact is likely to be be more life threatening that any experienced during recent generations," it warned. More than 400,000 people live in the cyclone's expected path. The area, which includes the Great Barrier Reef, is also popular with tourists. Cairns airport closed on Wednesday. Rail lines, mines and coal ports have also shut down.

Irish Prime Minister Brian Cowen quits politics ~ link ~ He is VERY LUCKY to not be hanging from a light-post. He is hated and considered an economic traitor by most Irishmen, and for good cause. Stirling

Irish Prime Minister Brian Cowen has announced he is quitting politics and will not contest the next election.

He made the announcement before a selection convention for his party’s election candidates in County Offaly. His brother Barry will replace him on the ticket.

Cowen lost the leadership of the Fianna Fail party last week but has continued as caretaker Prime Minister, a role he will continue in until the new government is sworn in following the up-coming election. The date of the election is expected to be February 25.

18 Medical Bill Statistics ... That will make you want to tear your hair out ~ link ~ Do not read this article if you do not want to get angry. The health care industry in the United States has become one gigantic money making scam, and tens of millions of American families now live in great fear of illness and disease. Why are they so afraid? It is not because they fear the illnesses and diseases. Rather, the prospect of racking up tens of thousands (if not hundreds of thousands) of dollars in medical debt is enough to deeply frighten just about anyone. Today, virtually every single American is one really bad day from financial ruin. Did you know that medical bills are the number one reason for bankruptcy in the United States? Did you know that the vast majority of people that go bankrupt due to medical bills actually have health insurance? Meanwhile, there are a significant number of people that are becoming fabulously wealthy off of this system. Our "health care industry" has turned large numbers of doctors, lawyers, health insurance company executives and pharmaceutical company executives into multi-millionaires. The health care industry in the United States has been so corrupt and so greedy for so long that we don't even remember what a legitimate medical system even looks like anymore.

Democrats hailed "Obamacare" as the solution to many of our health care problems, but the truth is that it does not solve any of them. In fact, it is almost certain to increase health care costs. Health insurance companies all over the United States have already announced plans to raise premiums substantially because of this new law.

Not that the Republicans are proposing anything better. They want to repeal Obamacare, which is a great idea, but beyond that they don't have any real solutions for the health care nightmares that we are facing.

About Me

I hold several ancient Scottish titles, Earl of Stirling, Viscount of Canada, Viscount of Stirling, Lord Alexander of Tulibody (1630), Lord Alexander of Tulibody (1633), etc., Chief of Clan Alexander, I also hold several honorific old Canadian great offices-of-state: Lord Lieutenant and Governor of Canada, Lord High Admiral of Nova Scotia, Lord Lieutenant of Nova Scotia, Lt.-Gen. of Nova Scotis (first Lord Stirling was founder of English speaking Canada in the early 1600s). I hold 3 degrees: B.Sc. in Pol. Sc. & History; M.A. in European Studies; B.Sc. in Education. I have worked on 3 addtional degrees: M.T.S. (theology); LL.B. (English Law); M.S. (Criminal Justice). I am former Scottish Editor at Burke's Peerage in London. I also hold several Scots/Canadian feudal titles. I am a widower. I have a published book, CASH FOR PEERAGES: THE SMOKING GUN, www.lulu.com/content/953682 .
I am available for public speaking engagements. Please contact me at: earlofstirling@yahoo.com